Middle School Boys’ New

Posted on
August 5, 2016

I’m not sure about you, but this seems to be a long wet winter this year. We’re certainly noticing it a bit at school with the boys often forced to remain indoors at recess or lunch, or not able to access the ovals properly given the very wet conditions. Hopefully with August now upon us we may soon start to see some warmer weather come our way. Despite this, it has still been a very busy fortnight in the Boys’ Middle School. From finalising their subject selections for next year, to sitting ICAS English testing, there has certainly been plenty to keep the boys occupied.

There are many things happening at the moment for the boys and one in particular is the auditions for the 2017 musical Hairspray. The musical is always a lot of fun and certainly a rewarding experience for all people that participate. I encourage all boys to put their name down for a position; acting, singing, backstage, etc.

An event that is nearing is our Year 9 Future’s Day and this involves our boys and girls listening to people from different fields of work or study about their chosen careers or pathways. They will have the opportunity to sit in 25 minute tutorial type sessions where people will be sharing with them more details about their career and the skills and attributes required for it. More details will be emailed out very shorty but we are looking for parent volunteers for the day to talk about what they do. It’s going to be on Monday 22nd of August during the morning hours. If you are potentially interested I would love to hear from you.

Our Year 8 boys have been introduced to their leadership program ‘Leading Self, Leading Others’ this term and in this last week we introduced to them ACSL – Active Community Service and Leadership Log. The Leading Self, Leading Others program is designed to provide the boys with an understanding as to what leadership is, what makes successful leaders and how everyone will have to take on a leadership position of some description in their lives. Throughout their pastoral sessions the boys will be developing their understanding of effective leaders, as well as practising to be a leader with a number of opportunities coming up throughout this semester for them to get involved in. ACSL is an opportunity for them to keep a log of their involvement in both leadership and community service activities both in and out of school. We have set a target of 8 – 10 hours as a minimum for the boys to achieve and they need to be keeping a record of their involvement on their ACSL log.

On Thursday 4th August we had an external group called Values for Life run a program titled Lead the Way which reinforced the skills and attributes of good leaders as well as provided some very entertaining and engaging ways to help the students learn about leadership.

Year 9 camp Preparation:

Our Year 9s head off on their Winter Camp next week. This is often the camp that older students reflect on as being their favourite camp of their High School years. They will be white water rafting, cross-country skiing, mountain biking, doing commando courses and many other great activities. They spent some time this week preparing for camp with a bike and raft session at school. These sessions provided the boys with some important understanding into both bike and raft/river safety. I look forward to sharing some of their adventures after they return.

Musical performances at assembly:

At each of our assemblies we aim to have a musical performance. Earlier in this term we heard from Lachlan Bastin in Year 7 who played his Bassoon.

[insert video link of musical performances]

House Trivia 2016:

On Friday 29th of July we had our annual Middle School House Trivia competition hosted by Mr Kenny. It was a really entertaining competition with categories on movies, famous faces, Australian history, etc. Each House split into genders and then into Year levels creating around 30 teams. When the competition was over the points added up, it was Mansfield McKie that came out on top.